Start with context

This chapter is in the middle of a book which is about problems in the church. It is in the middle of  a section on worship Ch. 11-14. Ch. 12 has been concerned with decency in worship, the Lord's Supper. Paul is dealing with the vital issue of the working of the Holy Spirit in the church. He has just underlined that their are differences of gifts but the same Lord. That the gifts are the work of the same Spirit. Each one of us is given different gifts. Each person has a part to play in the church. He is going on to the practise of tongues and prophecy in worship and order in worship.

 

            This is the context of the passage. Lets not forget that. Paul is talking to a fellowship about all sorts of problems, division, adultery, incest, blasphemy, law-suits, marriage, meat offered to idols, chaotic worship services and problems about the resurrection.

 

pursuit of excellence.

 He begins And now I will show the most excellent way.  This is in the context of a church that had excellence!! - excellent wisdom, excellent liberal ideas, excellent worship services. They had a pursuit of excellence but it was not the most excellent way.  In fact most of their ideas of excellence were turning out to be destructive and running contrary to the gospel.

 

Structure.

            Notice how this passage forms a sandwich.

12:31 matches 14:1 referring to the way of love, 13:1-3 matches with 13:8-12 as Paul underlines the essential need of love and then speaks of its enduring quality. At the heart of the passage is 13:4-7 where love acts.

 

excellent way

            Secondly, it is a way. Love is not an ideal, an emotion or a philosophy. When Jesus said "I am the way" he also said "Follow me" The first step in that way for those first disciples was to quit fishing and trek round Israel, learning the ways of Jesus-the "how to" of the Christian life.

            So Paul says to you and me this morning: "If you want the best in your morning Service, your house group, our Communion service or whatever, read on. This is the "Paul of Tarsus method of successful worship"

 

v1-3

            These refer back to the passages before and after this one Ch. 12 and 14.

 

listen to Don Francesco

 

            You see the church in Corinth had worked  out a new exciting, vibrant way of worshipping but Paul is saying, Hold on! STOP! In the race to get it all right - look at the casualties - the divisions, the weak brother mislead, the offence given to other worshippers, the competition to speak in tongues, etc. You've got all the right actions but you are missing the mark completely. This is bread without flour, Christianity without Christ.

 

IJohn 2:10

 

            Now is love just a sort of cement that glues all our good ideas together? A lovey-dovey feeling that means we all get along in some vague out of this world way.

 

            This is not the love described here.

 

v4-7

            These words frequently appear pretty picture posters, as if they can be cut out of the letter. BUT these are written to Christians IN CHRIST.

 Look at 1:4 and 1:18

 

            So often this passage appears with no reference to the rest of the book. It is doubtful that the church at Corinth saw them as a definition of 'LOVE' If Paul had been a faithful teacher then he would have taught them the words of  Jesus

 

Love the Lord your God with all your .........Matt 22:37

Love your neighbour as you love yourself ....Matt 5:43

Love your enemies ....................................Matt 5:44

By this shall all men know that you are my disciples ... John 13:35

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son ... John 3:16

 

            The New Testament church would have understood that  agape love is defined in Jesus. So Paul is not defining love, he is making pointers to show the way of love. like a giant road sign on a motorway we are given guides in our choosing.

 

 

 

           

 

Choosing to agape

 

            The relevance of this passage to us I hope is obvious. We have problems as a church. We react wrongly to one another, act in our own interests rather than the interests of others. This passage of scripture calls for change, first and foremost in the way we choose to act.  If we accept that things are not right, then we must turn away from what is wrong and start doing what is right. And this is how we do it. We choose to love, we choose to be patient, etc.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a very structured paragraph with constantly repeated phrases. Although it will be a little stilted, let me read it as a word by word translation:

H agape makpoqumei,

 love  is patient

crsteuetai h agape,

 is kind love

ou zhloi, h agape

not envious love,

ou perpereutai,

not boasting,

ou fusioutai,

not proud,

ouk aschmonei,

not rude,

ou zhtei ta eauths,

not seek of itself

ou paroxunetai

not provoked,

ou logizetai to kakon,

not keep a record of evil,

ou cairei epi th adikia,

not rejoicing over wrong

suncairei de th alhqeia.

rejoices with the truth.

panta stegei

Always protects

panta pisteuei,

Always believes

panta elpizei

Always hopes

panta upomevei.

always endures.

                       

            The problem with this passage is not understanding it. It is carrying it out in our daily lives. Remember God has placed his Holy Spirit in each of our lives. It is therefore a matter of opening our lives to the Holy Spirit and letting the love of God sweep through us and enable us to be what God wants us to be, to choose what God wants us to choose, to choose the way of love. So we begin by committing ourselves to being patient when we irritable and impatient. We choose to be kind when we wanted to be rude. We recognise envy of another persons spiritual gifts and let go of our envy, enjoying the fact that God gave them the gift for all of us to benefit from. We trust in God when boasting enters our thinking. We understand that we have no right to be proud of our gifts. They were not given to us because of any righteousness of our own. They were given for the up-building of the church. We choose to be polite, to give proper respect to one another. We look to others interests, choosing to put our own interests on the end of our priorities. We choose not to let  the faults of others provoke us into unloving responses. I don't know about you but I often think I could be loving if the rest of you were perfect first! The most common excuse I get at school is 'He was doing it to me'. The next criteria for loving action similarly looks at our response when others are not perfect. When we are upset, how often in an argument or at least in our mind the words 'You ALWAYS say that, do that. Last year you did so and so.' But we are to forgive and that is not a one off event. If we forgave them last year, we have to forgive them today for what they did last year, otherwise we have not forgiven them at all. We not keep records of wrongs. And we don't rejoice over wrong. Paul has spoken very forcibly about the church being proud to have incest in its ranks. We may not go that far but too often we like to appear to be 'just as much a man  as the people we work with and end up applauding ourselves for our behaviour, whether it is strong language, crude jokes, deceptive dealing in business . No, says Paul rather rejoice in the truth.

            Paul goes on to underline the importance of  Love in the church.

 

v8-12

H agape oudepote (ek) piptei

 Love never fails

 

            This passage has been used to support the theology of dispensationalism. That is to say the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only temporary first Century events given by God for the establishing of his church. But if we put  verses 8- 12 together, it is clear that the next stage is not the church here on earth but the church face to face with God. Paul is clearly saying that the gifts are for the church now but love will go on into heaven for eternity.  In Ch. 15 ; 19 Paul says "If  only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are pitied more than all men. " Here he is reminding the church in Corinth that  the gifts are there for a church on earth. The gifts are temporary. But that is not to say irrelevant. In heaven the gifts will be fully developed into an eternity for praise and worship of our God. But Love is different. Love does not change in heaven. Love by its very nature never fails. Love is the reflection of God because God is love. As God never changes, love never fails. And on that our hope depends because if love were to fail, then maybe God might change his mind about me, and I would be lost, heading for an eternity of hell.

 

            What is more agape love never fails us in our choosing. Now I know that it may appear that way. Sometimes for the best motives a wrong course of action  seems to be the love option when in fact it is not.  The current debate on Euthanasia goes that way. It argues that when someone is suffering terribly and incurably, the love choice is to assist in terminating life. But is it?  I believe that choosing to love means understanding God's law in all its fullness and complexity so that our actions are consistent with his commands. When God says "Do not kill" he means that you cannot act in love and kill someone. So ending the pain by murder is not the love option. Christians are deeply committed to the Hospice movement, because it seeks to relieve the pain in these cases and offer a quality of life even in the most tragic cases.

 

fails = falls

            So love never fails us as a guide to right actions if the love that we have is given, guided and directed by the God of love. But there is another facet to this. The Greek word for fail is the word for falls. If we are to follow the way of love then we have to choose not to give up after a few weeks or when the going gets tough.

 

 

Faith, hope love

Finally Paul returns to the thoughts expressed in verse 7. These are the etrnal qualities that God has given us by his Holy Spirit. Strip a church of all but its bare essentials and you should find faith, hope and love. In eternity the church will be transformed into the perfect community that God intended when he created man in the first place. Faith, hope and love will characterise that community.

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